Michael Vaughan has spent the past few southern hemisphere summers commentating in Australia, and reads the local mood better than most. Last month, Vaughan made a pointed remark about the landscape in Australia.
“I’m not too sure the Aussie public love the Aussie team,” Vaughan said. “They don’t seem to have that kind of connection. You go back many years, when they were right behind them… this team has had so much success, but there seems to be a connection that’s not quite together with fans.
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“So, if England can get that first win in Perth, you can create a few divides within the Australian community.”
This is a settled and storied Australian team who are ranked No 1 by the International Cricket Council in Test cricket. They have won the World Test Championship (2023), the ODI World Cup (2023) and T20 World Cup (2021). They have failed to win away in India or win the Ashes away, but they have routinely drubbed England at home, and retained the urn since 2017-18. They have won plenty and a good chunk of the side will go down as all-time Australian greats.
So why does Vaughan feel there’s a lack of love between players and fans? Among the evidence for his claim was India’s win in Perth a year ago, which caused a mild meltdown in Australia. Amid a hysterical reaction, the defeat was variously described as a “humbling” and “embarrassing”, with players’ preparation and squad selection both in the gun from former players and fans.
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‘Have you ever seen such a despondent team of Australian cricketers?’ Adam Gilchrist said of Australia after their defeat by India last year – Reuters/AAP
Vaughan and his Fox commentary colleague Adam Gilchrist, the former Australia wicketkeeper, were among those to question whether the team were divided along batting and bowling lines after Josh Hazlewood deferred to the batsmen to answer a press-conference question about how the team were batting. The West Australian, scourge of England right now, mocked up their back page to ape a poster for the Christmas film The Holiday because Australia responded by resting instead of practising. “Aussies put their feet up and relax after horrid defeat,” it read.
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Alex Carey, the incumbent wicketkeeper, said a few days later: “I think it’s quite a big reaction, externally, for one Test loss.” Australia were good enough to recover to win the series 3-1, with India hurt by an injury to Jasprit Bumrah on a spicy pitch in Sydney. They had been unable to keep their foot on the throat, but Vaughan’s theory is that if England can win in Perth, the divides of 12 months ago will reopen.
Before the 2023 Ashes, a rift had certainly emerged between this generation of players and the great side of the 1990s and 2000s over the removal of Justin Langer as head coach. The perception was that players had forced the board’s hand to remove Langer, who was famously intense, and replace him with their preferred candidate, Andrew McDonald.
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Ricky Ponting, the former Australia captain and long-time team-mate of Langer’s, put the change down to “a small group in the playing group and a couple of other staff around the team”. Matthew Hayden, who opened the batting with Langer for seven years, was very upset. Mitchell Johnson, who straddled the eras, called captain Pat Cummins “gutless” for his part in it. Cummins responded by saying: “To all past players, I want to say this: Just as you have always stuck up for your mates, I’m sticking up for mine.”
Time, and more good cricket, seems to have healed some of that cricket culture war, however. But the shadows of the great previous generation still loom large. They set the Australian expectations – a standard close to cricketing perfection – but also shape the public narrative.
The Australian cricket media landscape is different to the UK, which is dominated by rights holders Sky and the BBC. For two months around Christmas, Test cricket is the only sporting show in town. Cricket Australia sells media rights to two TV stations – pay service Fox and free-to-air Channel Seven – and three radio stations: ABC Grandstand, sports callback broadcaster SEN, and the more humorous and larrikin Triple M.
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Mitchell Johnson is among a number of former players to have taken aim at Pat Cummins’ side – Reuters/Philip Brown
Each serves its own audience in a distinct way, but what this means is there are plenty of jobs to go round. All former players of note would have a media gig if they want one and each station is trying to outdo the others. More recently, this has been ramped up by the arrival of a range of podcasts, some helmed by great former players.
Players these days are very different. Quieter, perhaps a bit kinder on the field, with no obvious larrikin (although Travis Head has his moments), while Cummins is a thoughtful leader interested in environmental issues. Some pockets of the press and public dislike their activism and openness. When Australia lose, former greats question whether they are aggressive enough verbally and in their body language. Players are sometimes happy to snipe back; they say they “keep receipts”.
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The perception, at times, has been of a cosy club. David Warner was essentially allowed to set his own retirement date in all three formats, while few players have come through. Of the 16 players they have selected for the first Test, only Cameron Green, 26, is under 30. Generational change has not really happened, and the days of Stuart Law, Brad Hodge, Martin Love and more barely getting a look-in despite extraordinary first-class returns are long gone.
Much of the ire from former players seems to centre on the clubbable selector George Bailey, a former white-ball international captain who played five Tests, all of them in the Ashes whitewash of 2013-14. He wears a tracksuit, not a suit like selectors of old, and played with a good number of the current senior players. He is accused of being too close, and not making tough calls (although exactly which of the veterans should be pensioned off is unclear).
George Bailey’s decisions as chief selector have provoked the ire of former Australia players, including Matthew Hayden and Darren Lehmann – Getty Images/Paul Kane
Greg Chappell recently said the selectors were “safety-first”, while Hayden has described Cummins’s and Bailey’s views that batting orders can be flexible as “crazy”. Darren Lehmann, the former coach, has said Bailey is “too close”, which means “you actually get too emotional and you care about the players”.
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Best of all was Steve Waugh, who generally keeps his counsel. At an Ashes launch event held by Cricket Australia, he unloaded on Bailey. “I’d like to see the selectors pick the sides, not the players,” Waugh said. “There’s been a lot of players recently picking sides and saying who should be in the team. That’s the selectors’ job… George Bailey’s going to have to make some tough calls and I think in the past, he hasn’t really had the appetite for that at times, so he’s going to have to step up to the plate with the other selectors because it is a time of transition.”
Nothing unites Australian cricket supporters like a distaste for England, especially in their current Bazball iteration, which is perceived to be showy, gobby, and lacking substance. That dislike could mean Australian fans and pundits may be even quicker to turn on their team if England get off to a good start.
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